Silenced
by hawkstout
Summary: Warning: Mention of canonical rape - Dick needs help and goes to Diana to talk.


Notes: Warning! This story touches on some big issues. Issues that are very serious and very real that I probably haven't done justice for. It touches on how many comic books push to one-side male objectification and sexual violation citing 'men do it to women all the time,' while not giving their characters the ability to defend themselves, or even in some cases react, and, by extension, not showing male readers that they don't have to hide their emotions or suck it up if something like this happens to them. That being sexually violated is traumatizing for both men and women, for normal people and superheroes.

* * *

"So why have you come to me?" She asked because she really was curious. Of all the people, the friends Dick Grayson had he chose Diana. She admired the young man greatly, had seen him grow from a little boy, but she had never been as close to him as Clark, for instance if he wanted an outside opinion from the Bat-family. In fact, she was surprised he didn't go see Clark. Superman had given Richard his identity away from Batman, there was no one Richard looked up to more.

Dick met her eyes. They were in an apartment, probably one of many owned by Bruce Wayne. Dick had invited her over, said there was something he needed to talk to her about for her ears only. She knew the young man had recently had hard time. Bludhaven hadn't completely been forgotten, even with the Crisis.

They were both unmasked, just people. It wasn't bizarre to Diana, she wasn't like Bruce, she never wore a mask. She wondered if it made Dick uncomfortable.

"I… how do I put this…" Dick looked down and clasped his hands. "How do I even begin?" He had a troubled look, whatever it was, it was eating at him.

"You talk and I'll listen," Diana encouraged.

"Okay, I've come to you, and please don't take this the wrong way, but it's because you're a woman."

Diana raised an eyebrow. She didn't ask, she let him continue before she assumed anything.

"Because… you're _Wonder Woman_," Dick emphasised. "And you… you sort of have an outside perspective."

"An outside perspective of what?"

He fidgeted, it was strange to see him look so unconfident. Even as a little boy Dick had always been extremely sure of himself. It was almost unbelievable the hunched stance he had taken.

"Man's World," Dick answered. It was _her_ terminology. What her sisters and she called the outside world. She let her surprise show and Dick sighed.

"I'll start… maybe I'll start somewhere easy. From the time I was a child I have been physically at my best. I worked hard and at ten I could do a quadruple summersault and if I thought getting in shape for that was hard I had no idea what was in store for me when I got taken in by Bruce and my training to be Robin began. I fight criminals—super criminals. If I'm not in top form I'm dead. Some people cumulate these facts with the assertion that I have a nice ass."

Diana snorted, but regretted it instantly. Dick didn't look hurt by his reaction, but his face was very serious.

"It's okay," he seemed to pick up on her guilt, "I use humour to deflect; you're allowed to laugh, but… I just—"

"I'm listening, Dick. I really am," She assured him. "And I'm taking you seriously."

He nodded.

"So… when I was a kid I wasn't… I got complements. Usually girls patting my head or little old ladies pinching my cheek. I didn't mind, even if my cheeks were sore afterwards. They were just being nice after all. Thing is when I reached a certain age people started to notice… certain aspects of me. It wasn't being noticed that bothered me. You know me, I was a show off, I liked the attention, but I was starting to get attention that I didn't like."

Diana frowned, "What sort of attention?"

Dick blushed, "Okay, well. I got… teased? I guess I got teased about my looks and what I wore. I mean, I didn't mind if it was my close friends. Like Wally used to go on about my silky smooth legs and Donna would tug the ponytail I used to have, but they were Wally and Donna. Roy would call me 'Short pants' and that was Roy. I joked back at them just as much. It was alright with them, but it wasn't _just_ them. There were people, people I didn't really even know outside the mask who would make comments and even—well let's just say it wasn't the cheeks on my face I had to worry about getting pinched. I—so yeah. I was kind of asking for it with the original costume but—"

Diana wasn't okay with this because she suddenly realized what this conversation was about. She reached over and took Dick's hand. He met her fierce eyes.

"Wearing something doesn't mean you're asking for anything, Dick. As revealing or unrevealing as it might be, no one is ever asking for it be they woman _or_ man."

He looked so relieved that she understood. He pulled back and she let him.

"Yeah, that's how I always felt, but it's hard to say 'stop it,' when you're a guy."

"Why?" Diana asked.

Dick smiled ironically, "Yeah, why?" He echoed. "I guess that's why I wanted to talk to you. Because you get it. You understand respect and you… you know how equality works."

"It goes both ways," Diana said seriously. "I think I'm slowly getting the picture. You've been… objectified."

Dick laughed and looked at the ceiling, "Yeah, that's exactly what it is too." He looked back at her, "I don't want to—"

"You're not stomping on woman's rights, Dick. You're not whining or complaining or overreacting. I'm not going to tell you to stop talking because more women experience what you've experienced than men. I'm not going to write off your feelings because you're a man. You have every right to feel uncomfortable and not okay with it."

"I don't mind a lot of the time, you know?" Dick said. "A girl, superhero or otherwise will wink at me and give me a playful 'Nice Butt.' That's fine, but sometimes it's not fine. I mean, the Nightwing suit is tight and I—"

"And that's okay," Diana interrupted.

"It's less wind resistance and sometimes, yeah, it distracts a few villains from paying attention to my fists, but—"

"You don't need to justify it Dick," Diana repeated gently. "You can wear what you want or need."

"I'm usually okay with it," Dick sighed. "When it's… comfortable, when it's people I know, or it's playful. There's a fine line, but I feel like it should be obvious. But sometimes it'll be a random team up, or a new villain and it gets… jeez this is hard," he ran his hand through his hair.

"It gets weird?"

"It's mostly women, super heroes, they'll openly stare and they'll comment. There's been more than a few times where there's a few of them and they discuss my body right in front of me. Do you know how awkward that is?"

"Yes," Diana said sadly. When she first came to Man's World it had been one of the most awful feelings she had ever experienced. To be seen as a piece of something pretty. Something to look at and when she told them to stop she was told she didn't know how to take a compliment.

She knew the difference between a compliment and a catcall. A lot of women and girls did, they learned how to deal with it. They didn't like it, they didn't want it, but many of them stood up and said no anyway even at the risk of seeming 'unappreciated,' and others learned how to stop listening.

Diana suddenly felt very sorry for Dick because even though the situation wasn't different in any way the standard was.

"I don't know what to do when it happens."

And that was the problem, wasn't it?

"I just laugh it off, or make a joke, or ignore it completely. The truth is, I don't like it, I hate it, but every time I want to open my mouth I just can't… maybe because the response is usually—"

He was upset now.

"Hey, it's alright."

He shook his head, "I know what equality means, I learned from _you_, the best teacher I could have had on the subject. Equality, men and woman being equally respected. Being treated in a decent manner. Not being labeled because of their gender. Catcalling a man doesn't make a woman equal, that's not how it works, and it's the same as a man catcalling a woman. It's shredding apart another person."

"There are people that don't understand that feminism isn't against men," Diana said. "It's not about tearing them down, pulling them down, making them feel less. It's about raising woman up so that they stand on equal ground. It's about being shoulder to shoulder. Respect towards a person. 'Men do it to women all the time,' shouldn't be a legitimate reason for shutting someone down when they're uncomfortable."

"Yeah, and I know that and maybe I'm a bit of a coward when it comes to stuff like this, but I don't fight it, I know I should, but I don't."

"You don't have the armor. Little boys aren't taught to defend themselves like that. They're taught that being treated like a woman is shameful."

Dick looked stung.

"I try not to think like that," Dick said.

"I know."

"But sometimes, it's so automatic. It's ridiculous. There are so many women I know that I consider stronger people—better people than myself."

"You were raised in a world ruled by patriarchy. Even woman are shamed for acting like woman, but you know this. You know there's a double standard however you look at it. There's something else you want to talk about, your story doesn't end with objectification, does it?"

Diana wished that Richard would answer her in the negative. Shake his head and say: 'No, this is exactly what I want to talk to you about.' But he didn't.

"I've been… sexually, sexually I've been-"

Diana held her breath. No. That wasn't fair, not to such a good kid like Dick Grayson. No one deserved that least of all him.

"She was posing as Kori when we were dating," He began. "Mirage, she pretended to be Starfire, pushed me into sleeping with her. Then she told me. It was horrifying I had just been violated, there's no other way to describe it. I might have said yes, but I was saying yes to my girlfriend, not her. She revealed it in front of everyone. Do you know what the reaction was?"

Diana had the feeling she didn't want to know.

"I got called a slut and then asked who was better."

Dick was angry now. He clasped his hands tightly, they were shaking slightly.

"I had just been tricked into having sex and people were saying how Kori would be mad at me. Mirage mocked me saying I should have known the difference. Mirage was so messed up at the time, I can't completely blame her now, but still. It was devastating. My teammates, people I know so well. I didn't know what to do, so I just kept going. I didn't even know what to say. I wanted to scream, I wanted to talk to someone, but I was shot down before I could even open my mouth."

"Hera, Dick I'm so sorry."

"Who could I talk to?" Dick repeated. "I felt so isolated and guilty because I did feel awful, because I had mistaken her for Kori, because I had technically cheated on my girlfriend, because I had been used."

"This was…?"

"When I was nineteen."

Diana closed her eyes briefly. Dick was Twenty-six. That's seven years of silence. Of having to just live with it.

"I've been able to move past it, but recently I… Diana, there was so many things going on, Bludhaven, and the Crisis, and so many things that I haven't been able to catch up with myself until now, but I was raped." The word fell awkwardly off his lips, "And at the time I might have been able to lie to myself and say it was only 'non-consensual,' but that's just using a different word. It was rape and it's eating at me."

Dick's eyes dropped away again. Diana felt cold.

Her friend, a young man she viewed as a nephew had been torn apart so many times and she hadn't even known. Smiling happy Dick Grayson had so many dragons to face.

"When Blockbuster died, when Tarantula killed him I just stepped aside. I didn't save him. It still haunts me. I know that, as a last resort that you—"

Maxwell Lord. Her own dragon.

"You were raised by Batman. You didn't pull the trigger, but with the way you were raised…"

"It felt like I had killed him," Dick said. "It was so easy. I just stepped out of the way and she shot him and he was dead and everything was fixed. Everything was better, except it wasn't because I let him die. Because I hadn't been strong enough. I felt sick. I was in shock. I went up to the roof. It was raining, but I couldn't even feel the rain on my skin. I was panicking. I could barely even breath. She had followed me. She started kissing me."

"Dick—"

"I told her no. She didn't stop. I let her do what she wanted."

"Oh, Dick..."

"I didn't even leave her after that. We stayed together for a time. I couldn't see anything with clarity. All I could think about was how much Bruce would hate me. She would touch me, kiss me, brush my hair. It felt like there were snakes in my stomach. And some part of me was going 'you can walk away any time. You can leave, she wouldn't be able to stop you. But I kept thinking of Blockbuster falling. I wanted the pain, maybe to wash over Roland Desmond's death, but now I'm just ashamed and guilty and angry. She shouldn't have _done_ that to me. It was obvious I was emotionally unbalanced, but she took advantage of me. I almost married her, I probably would have if it hadn't been for a call from Bruce telling me he needed my help. For a while I pretended to be someone I wasn't. I infiltrated the mob, but half the time it was for real and half the time it was my own personal mission. If it hadn't gone so wrong I wonder where I would have landed, but the Crisis happened and Jason and Bludhaven and I haven't been able to breathe Diana. I don't know how to get past this. I can't shake it off, I can't move past it, I can't joke about it. I can't 'be a man,' whatever that's supposed to be. I'm just so lost right now. I know how I should react. I know I should have told someone before now, but… but who could I tell? The reaction would have been the same. 'Grayson, you moron. A hot woman wants to sleep with you and all you can do is cry about it?' I just want to deal with it, I just want to get rid of this shame and guilt and rage, but I haven't been able to."

Dick rubbed his eyes, furious with himself.

Diana moved to sit beside him. She wrapped her arms around him and he shook against her trying to hold back his emotions.

"So when people talk about my 'nice ass' I want to scream. I want to be myself again, I want to be whole. I don't want to be a piece of meat. I don't want to be a thing. I just want to be Dick Grayson again, but I feel like that'll never happen."

Diana petted his hair. His head was on her shoulder and he could feel tears soak into her blouse.

The amount of friends this boy has and he's so completely isolated in his own head. Completely cut off. His voice had been silenced.

This was the student of Batman and he had been silenced.

"Dick, this is not your fault, none of it is. No one deserves that. No one."

"Then why does it feel like I do?"

Diana could cite a million reasons. From Dick's own actions, to what have happened to other people in the same situation, but it was a sympathetic answer. As much as she wanted to she couldn't give the young man a reason. She had never experienced rape herself. She hoped to Hera she never would. She could only give comfort and understanding and repeat:

"None of this is your fault. You may not feel like it now, but you will heal, Dick. I'll help you heal. We'll do it together. You're not alone anymore, I promise."

Dick clung to her. She held him tighter.

He wouldn't have to be alone for this anymore.

* * *

_"For the record, I've never used the word 'rape', I just said it was non-consensual."_ - Devin Grayson

* * *

Notes: Thank you for reading. I don't have much to say. I don't know if I did this issue any justice. I don't read Wonder Woman at all, but it kind of clicked for me that it had to be her to talk to Dick because of what she has come to represent when it comes to gender equality. I was probably unqualified to write this fic, but I think it needed to be written. Gah.


End file.
